From archaeon to eukaryote: the evolutionary dark ages of the eukaryotic cell

Birth of the eukaryotes by a set of reactive innovations: New insights force us to relinquish gradual models

Of two contending models for eukaryotic evolution the "archezoan" has an amitochondriate eukaryote take up an endosymbiont, while "symbiogenesis" states that an Archaeon became a eukaryote as the result of this uptake. If so, organelle formation resulting from new engulfments is simplified by the primordial symbiogenesis, and less informative regarding the bacterium-to-mitochondrion conversion. Gradualist archezoan visions still permeate evolutionary thinking, but are much less likely than symbiogenesis. Genuine amitochondriate eukaryotes have never been found and rapid, explosive adaptive periods characteristic of symbiogenetic models explain this. Mitochondrial proteomes, encoded by genes of "eukaryotic origin" not easily linked to host or endosymbiont, can be understood in light of rapid adjustments to new evolutionary pressures. Symbiogenesis allows "expensive" eukaryotic inventions via efficient ATP generation by nascent mitochondria. However, efficient ATP production equals enhanced toxic internal ROS formation. The synergistic combination of these two driving forces gave rise to the rapid evolution of eukaryotes. Also watch the Video Abstract.

Energy for two: New archaeal lineages and the origin of mitochondria

Metagenomics bears upon all aspects of microbiology, including our understanding of mitochondrial and eukaryote origin. Recently, ribosomal protein phylogenies show the eukaryote host lineage - the archaeal lineage that acquired the mitochondrion - to branch within the archaea. Metagenomic studies are now uncovering new archaeal lineages that branch more closely to the host than any cultivated archaea do. But how do they grow? Carbon and energy metabolism as pieced together from metagenome assemblies of these new archaeal lineages, such as the Deep Sea Archaeal Group (including Lokiarchaeota) and Bathyarchaeota, do not match the physiology of any cultivated microbes. Understanding how these new lineages live in their environment is important, and might hold clues about how mitochondria arose and how the eukaryotic lineage got started. Here we look at these exciting new metagenomic studies, what they say about archaeal physiology in modern environments, how they impact views on host-mitochondrion physiological interactions at eukaryote origin.

Origin of eukaryotes from within archaea, archaeal eukaryome and bursts of gene gain: eukaryogenesis just made easier?

The origin of eukaryotes is a fundamental, forbidding evolutionary puzzle. Comparative genomic analysis clearly shows that the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) possessed most of the signature complex features of modern eukaryotic cells, in particular the mitochondria, the endomembrane system including the nucleus, an advanced cytoskeleton and the ubiquitin network. Numerous duplications of ancestral genes, e.g. DNA polymerases, RNA polymerases and proteasome subunits, also can be traced back to the LECA. Thus, the LECA was not a primitive organism and its emergence must have resulted from extensive evolution towards cellular complexity. However, the scenario of eukaryogenesis, and in particular the relationship between endosymbiosis and the origin of eukaryotes, is far from being clear. Four recent developments provide new clues to the likely routes of eukaryogenesis. First, evolutionary reconstructions suggest complex ancestors for most of the major groups of archaea, with the subsequent evolution dominated by gene loss. Second, homologues of signature eukaryotic proteins, such as actin and tubulin that form the core of the cytoskeleton or the ubiquitin system, have been detected in diverse archaea. The discovery of this ‘dispersed eukaryome’ implies that the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes was a complex cell that might have been capable of a primitive form of phagocytosis and thus conducive to endosymbiont capture. Third, phylogenomic analyses converge on the origin of most eukaryotic genes of archaeal descent from within the archaeal evolutionary tree, specifically, the TACK superphylum. Fourth, evidence has been presented that the origin of the major archaeal phyla involved massive acquisition of bacterial genes. Taken together, these findings make the symbiogenetic scenario for the origin of eukaryotes considerably more plausible and the origin of the organizational complexity of eukaryotic cells more readily explainable than they appeared until recently.

Eukaryotes first: how could that be?

In the half century since the formulation of the prokaryote : eukaryote dichotomy, many authors have proposed that the former evolved from something resembling the latter, in defiance of common (and possibly common sense) views. In such 'eukaryotes first' (EF) scenarios, the last universal common ancestor is imagined to have possessed significantly many of the complex characteristics of contemporary eukaryotes, as relics of an earlier 'progenotic' period or RNA world. Bacteria and Archaea thus must have lost these complex features secondarily, through 'streamlining'. If the canonical three-domain tree in which Archaea and Eukarya are sisters is accepted, EF entails that Bacteria and Archaea are convergently prokaryotic. We ask what this means and how it might be tested.

Exploring microbial dark matter to resolve the deep archaeal ancestry of eukaryotes

The origin of eukaryotes represents an enigmatic puzzle, which is still lacking a number of essential pieces. Whereas it is currently accepted that the process of eukaryogenesis involved an interplay between a host cell and an alphaproteobacterial endosymbiont, we currently lack detailed information regarding the identity and nature of these players. A number of studies have provided increasing support for the emergence of the eukaryotic host cell from within the archaeal domain of life, displaying a specific affiliation with the archaeal TACK superphylum. Recent studies have shown that genomic exploration of yet-uncultivated archaea, the so-called archaeal ‘dark matter’, is able to provide unprecedented insights into the process of eukaryogenesis. Here, we provide an overview of state-of-the-art cultivation-independent approaches, and demonstrate how these methods were used to obtain draft genome sequences of several novel members of the TACK superphylum, including Lokiarchaeum, two representatives of the Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotal Group (Bathyarchaeota), and a Korarchaeum-related lineage. The maturation of cultivation-independent genomics approaches, as well as future developments in next-generation sequencing technologies, will revolutionize our current view of microbial evolution and diversity, and provide profound new insights into the early evolution of life, including the enigmatic origin of the eukaryotic cell.

Late acquisition of mitochondria by a host with chimaeric prokaryotic ancestry

The origin of eukaryotes stands as a major conundrum in biology. Current evidence indicates that the last eukaryotic common ancestor already possessed many eukaryotic hallmarks, including a complex subcellular organization. In addition, the lack of evolutionary intermediates challenges the elucidation of the relative order of emergence of eukaryotic traits. Mitochondria are ubiquitous organelles derived from an alphaproteobacterial endosymbiont. Different hypotheses disagree on whether mitochondria were acquired early or late during eukaryogenesis. Similarly, the nature and complexity of the receiving host are debated, with models ranging from a simple prokaryotic host to an already complex proto-eukaryote. Most competing scenarios can be roughly grouped into either mito-early, which consider the driving force of eukaryogenesis to be mitochondrial endosymbiosis into a simple host, or mito-late, which postulate that a significant complexity predated mitochondrial endosymbiosis. Here we provide evidence for late mitochondrial endosymbiosis. We use phylogenomics to directly test whether proto-mitochondrial proteins were acquired earlier or later than other proteins of the last eukaryotic common ancestor. We find that last eukaryotic common ancestor protein families of alphaproteobacterial ancestry and of mitochondrial localization show the shortest phylogenetic distances to their closest prokaryotic relatives, compared with proteins of different prokaryotic origin or cellular localization. Altogether, our results shed new light on a long-standing question and provide compelling support for the late acquisition of mitochondria into a host that already had a proteome of chimaeric phylogenetic origin. We argue that mitochondrial endosymbiosis was one of the ultimate steps in eukaryogenesis and that it provided the definitive selective advantage to mitochondria-bearing eukaryotes over less complex forms.

Tracing the Archaeal Origins of Eukaryotic Membrane-Trafficking System Building Blocks

In contrast to prokaryotes, eukaryotic cells are characterized by a complex set of internal membrane-bound compartments. A subset of these, and the protein machineries that move material between them, define the membrane-trafficking system (MTS), the emergence of which represents a landmark in eukaryotic evolution. Unlike mitochondria and plastids, MTS organelles have autogenous origins. Much of the MTS machinery is composed of building blocks, including small GTPase, coiled-coil, beta-propeller + alpha-solenoid, and longin domains. Despite the identification of prokaryotic proteins containing these domains, only few represent direct orthologues, leaving the origins and early evolution of the MTS poorly understood. Here, we present an in-depth analysis of MTS building block homologues in the composite genome of Lokiarchaeum, the recently discovered archaeal sister clade of eukaryotes, yielding several key insights. We identify two previously unreported Eukaryotic Signature Proteins; orthologues of the Gtr/Rag family GTPases, involved in target of rapamycin complex signaling, and of the RLC7 dynein component. We could not identify golgin or SNARE (coiled-coil) or beta-propeller + alpha-solenoid orthologues, nor typical MTS domain fusions, suggesting that these either were lost from Lokiarchaeum or emerged later in eukaryotic evolution. Furthermore, our phylogenetic analyses of lokiarchaeal GTPases support a split into Ras-like and Arf-like superfamilies, with different prokaryotic antecedents, before the advent of eukaryotes. While no GTPase activating proteins or exchange factors were identified, we show that Lokiarchaeum encodes numerous roadblock domain proteins and putative longin domain proteins, confirming the latter's origin from Archaea. Altogether, our study provides new insights into the emergence and early evolution of the eukaryotic membrane-trafficking system.

Histories of molecules: Reconciling the past

Molecular data and methods have become centrally important to evolutionary analysis, largely because they have enabled global phylogenetic reconstructions of the relationships between organisms in the tree of life. Often, however, molecular stories conflict dramatically with morphology-based histories of lineages. The evolutionary origin of animal groups provides one such case. In other instances, different molecular analyses have so far proved irreconcilable. The ancient and major divergence of eukaryotes from prokaryotic ancestors is an example of this sort of problem. Efforts to overcome these conflicts highlight the role models play in phylogenetic reconstruction. One crucial model is the molecular clock; another is that of 'simple-to-complex' modification. I will examine animal and eukaryote evolution against a backdrop of increasing methodological sophistication in molecular phylogeny, and conclude with some reflections on the nature of historical science in the molecular era of phylogeny.

Open Questions on the Origin of Eukaryotes

Despite recent progress, the origin of the eukaryotic cell remains enigmatic. It is now known that the last eukaryotic common ancestor was complex and that endosymbiosis played a crucial role in eukaryogenesis at least via the acquisition of the alphaproteobacterial ancestor of mitochondria. However, the nature of the mitochondrial host is controversial, although the recent discovery of an archaeal lineage phylogenetically close to eukaryotes reinforces models proposing archaea-derived hosts. We argue that, in addition to improved phylogenomic analyses with more comprehensive taxon sampling to pinpoint the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes, determining plausible mechanisms and selective forces at the origin of key eukaryotic features, such as the nucleus or the bacterial-like eukaryotic membrane system, is essential to constrain existing models.

Archaeal ancestors of eukaryotes: not so elusive any more

The origin of eukaryotes is one of the hardest problems in evolutionary biology and sometimes raises the ominous specter of irreducible complexity. Reconstruction of the gene repertoire of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) has revealed a highly complex organism with a variety of advanced features but no detectable evolutionary intermediates to explain their origin. Recently, however, genome analysis of diverse archaea led to the discovery of apparent ancestral versions of several signature eukaryotic systems, such as the actin cytoskeleton and the ubiquitin network, that are scattered among archaea. These findings inspired the hypothesis that the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes was an unusually complex form with an elaborate intracellular organization. The latest striking discovery made by deep metagenomic sequencing vindicates this hypothesis by showing that in phylogenetic trees eukaryotes fall within a newly identified archaeal group, the Lokiarchaeota, which combine several eukaryotic signatures previously identified in different archaea. The discovery of complex archaea that are the closest living relatives of eukaryotes is most compatible with the symbiogenetic scenario for eukaryogenesis.

Endosymbiotic theories for eukaryote origin

For over 100 years, endosymbiotic theories have figured in thoughts about the differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. More than 20 different versions of endosymbiotic theory have been presented in the literature to explain the origin of eukaryotes and their mitochondria. Very few of those models account for eukaryotic anaerobes. The role of energy and the energetic constraints that prokaryotic cell organization placed on evolutionary innovation in cell history has recently come to bear on endosymbiotic theory. Only cells that possessed mitochondria had the bioenergetic means to attain eukaryotic cell complexity, which is why there are no true intermediates in the prokaryote-to-eukaryote transition. Current versions of endosymbiotic theory have it that the host was an archaeon (an archaebacterium), not a eukaryote. Hence the evolutionary history and biology of archaea increasingly comes to bear on eukaryotic origins, more than ever before. Here, we have compiled a survey of endosymbiotic theories for the origin of eukaryotes and mitochondria, and for the origin of the eukaryotic nucleus, summarizing the essentials of each and contrasting some of their predictions to the observations. A new aspect of endosymbiosis in eukaryote evolution comes into focus from these considerations: the host for the origin of plastids was a facultative anaerobe.

The universal tree of life: an update

Biologists used to draw schematic “universal” trees of life as metaphors illustrating the history of life. It is indeed a priori possible to construct an organismal tree connecting the three major domains of ribosome encoding organisms: Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya, since they originated by cell division from LUCA. Several universal trees based on ribosomal RNA sequence comparisons proposed at the end of the last century are still widely used, although some of their main features have been challenged by subsequent analyses. Several authors have proposed to replace the traditional universal tree with a ring of life, whereas others have proposed more recently to include viruses as new domains. These proposals are misleading, suggesting that endosymbiosis can modify the shape of a tree or that viruses originated from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). I propose here an updated version of Woese’s universal tree that includes several rootings for each domain and internal branching within domains that are supported by recent phylogenomic analyses of domain specific proteins. The tree is rooted between Bacteria and Arkarya, a new name proposed for the clade grouping Archaea and Eukarya. A consensus version, in which each of the three domains is unrooted, and a version in which eukaryotes emerged within archaea are also presented. This last scenario assumes the transformation of a modern domain into another, a controversial evolutionary pathway. Viruses are not indicated in these trees but are intrinsically present because they infect the tree from its roots to its leaves. Finally, I present a detailed tree of the domain Archaea, proposing the sub-phylum neo-Euryarchaeota for the monophyletic group of euryarchaeota containing DNA gyrase. These trees, that will be easily updated as new data become available, could be useful to discuss controversial scenarios regarding early life evolution.

Lokiarchaeota: eukaryote-like missing links from microbial dark matter?

Identification and genome sequencing of novel organismal groups can reduce the gap between the sequenced minority and the unexplored majority. The recent discovery of phylum Lokiarchaeota promises understanding of biological history. Here we inquire if Lokiarchaeota truly represent ancient eukaryotic ancestors or just microbial dark matter of expanding archaeal diversity.

Complex archaea that bridge the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes

The origin of the eukaryotic cell remains one of the most contentious puzzles in modern biology. Recent studies have provided support for the emergence of the eukaryotic host cell from within the archaeal domain of life, but the identity and nature of the putative archaeal ancestor remain a subject of debate. Here we describe the discovery of 'Lokiarchaeota', a novel candidate archaeal phylum, which forms a monophyletic group with eukaryotes in phylogenomic analyses, and whose genomes encode an expanded repertoire of eukaryotic signature proteins that are suggestive of sophisticated membrane remodelling capabilities. Our results provide strong support for hypotheses in which the eukaryotic host evolved from a bona fide archaeon, and demonstrate that many components that underpin eukaryote-specific features were already present in that ancestor. This provided the host with a rich genomic 'starter-kit' to support the increase in the cellular and genomic complexity that is characteristic of eukaryotes.

Eukaryogenesis, how special really?

Eukaryogenesis is widely viewed as an improbable evolutionary transition uniquely affecting the evolution of life on this planet. However, scientific and popular rhetoric extolling this event as a singularity lacks rigorous evidential and statistical support. Here, we question several of the usual claims about the specialness of eukaryogenesis, focusing on both eukaryogenesis as a process and its outcome, the eukaryotic cell. We argue in favor of four ideas. First, the criteria by which we judge eukaryogenesis to have required a genuinely unlikely series of events 2 billion years in the making are being eroded by discoveries that fill in the gaps of the prokaryote:eukaryote "discontinuity." Second, eukaryogenesis confronts evolutionary theory in ways not different from other evolutionary transitions in individuality; parallel systems can be found at several hierarchical levels. Third, identifying which of several complex cellular features confer on eukaryotes a putative richer evolutionary potential remains an area of speculation: various keys to success have been proposed and rejected over the five-decade history of research in this area. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, it is difficult and may be impossible to eliminate eukaryocentric bias from the measures by which eukaryotes as a whole are judged to have achieved greater success than prokaryotes as a whole. Overall, we question whether premises of existing theories about the uniqueness of eukaryogenesis and the greater evolutionary potential of eukaryotes have been objectively formulated and whether, despite widespread acceptance that eukaryogenesis was "special," any such notion has more than rhetorical value.

Mosaic nature of the mitochondrial proteome: Implications for the origin and evolution of mitochondria

Comparative studies of the mitochondrial proteome have identified a conserved core of proteins descended from the α-proteobacterial endosymbiont that gave rise to the mitochondrion and was the source of the mitochondrial genome in contemporary eukaryotes. A surprising result of phylogenetic analyses is the relatively small proportion (10-20%) of the mitochondrial proteome displaying a clear α-proteobacterial ancestry. A large fraction of mitochondrial proteins typically has detectable homologs only in other eukaryotes and is presumed to represent proteins that emerged specifically within eukaryotes. A further significant fraction of the mitochondrial proteome consists of proteins with homologs in prokaryotes, but without a robust phylogenetic signal affiliating them with specific prokaryotic lineages. The presumptive evolutionary source of these proteins is quite different in contending models of mitochondrial origin.

Microorganisms-A Journal and a Unifying Concept for the Science of Microbiology

The MDPI journal Microorganisms is still very young, having been launched in 2013, but the concept of the microorganism has been in use for at least a century as a unifying principle for the discipline of microbiology, which was cemented firmly by the intellectual work of Roger Stanier and colleagues in their Microbial World and other general microbiology textbooks and related articles from the 1950s to the 1970s [1,2]. Merging the idea of the microscopic and the very small with the older idea of an organism as a living entity or cell, the concept of a microorganism enabled a real appreciation of the microbial world as one that is amenable to study using similar tools and approaches even though representing distinctly different types of reproductive units and cell organizations. In the late 20th century following the work of Carl Woese and other molecular evolutionists, biologists came to appreciate the commonality among all organisms, all being comprised of cells that bear a remarkable similarity to one another and that share a common evolutionary ancestry, and consequently with major features of a largely shared genetic code and molecular biology. In this sense microbiology and biology as a whole became unified as they never had been before.[...].

Evolution and diversity of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases in prokaryotes

The Ras superfamily of small GTPases are single domain nucleotide-dependent molecular switches that act as highly tuned regulators of complex signal transduction pathways. Originally identified in eukaryotes for their roles in fundamental cellular processes including proliferation, motility, polarity, nuclear transport, and vesicle transport, recent studies have revealed that single domain GTPases also control complex functions such as cell polarity, motility, predation, development and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Here, we used a computational genomics approach to understand the abundance, diversity, and evolution of small GTPases in prokaryotes. We collected 520 small GTPase sequences present in 17% of 1,611 prokaryotic genomes analyzed that cover diverse lineages. We identified two discrete families of small GTPases in prokaryotes that show evidence of three distinct catalytic mechanisms. The MglA family includes MglA homologs, which are typically associated with the MglB GTPase activating protein, whereas members of the Rup (Ras superfamily GTPase of unknown function in prokaryotes) family are not predicted to interact with MglB homologs. System classification and genome context analyses support the involvement of small GTPases in diverse prokaryotic signal transduction pathways including two component systems, laying the foundation for future experimental characterization of these proteins. Phylogenetic analysis of prokaryotic and eukaryotic GTPases supports that the last universal common ancestor contained ancestral MglA and Rup family members. We propose that the MglA family was lost from the ancestral eukaryote and that the Ras superfamily members in extant eukaryotes are the result of vertical and horizontal gene transfer events of ancestral Rup GTPases.

Minimization of extracellular space as a driving force in prokaryote association and the origin of eukaryotes

BACKGROUND

Internalization-based hypotheses of eukaryotic origin require close physical association of host and symbiont. Prior hypotheses of how these associations arose include chance, specific metabolic couplings between partners, and prey-predator/parasite interactions. Since these hypotheses were proposed, it has become apparent that mixed-species, close-association assemblages (biofilms) are widespread and predominant components of prokaryotic ecology. Which forces drove prokaryotes to evolve the ability to form these assemblages are uncertain. Bacteria and archaea have also been found to form membrane-lined interconnections (nanotubes) through which proteins and RNA pass. These observations, combined with the structure of the nuclear envelope and an energetic benefit of close association (see below), lead us to propose a novel hypothesis of the driving force underlying prokaryotic close association and the origin of eukaryotes.

RESULTS

Respiratory proton transport does not alter external pH when external volume is effectively infinite. Close physical association decreases external volume. For small external volumes, proton transport decreases external pH, resulting in each transported proton increasing proton motor force to a greater extent. We calculate here that in biofilms this effect could substantially decrease how many protons need to be transported to achieve a given proton motor force. Based as it is solely on geometry, this energetic benefit would occur for all prokaryotes using proton-based respiration.

CONCLUSIONS

This benefit may be a driving force in biofilm formation. Under this hypothesis a very wide range of prokaryotic species combinations could serve as eukaryotic progenitors. We use this observation and the discovery of prokaryotic nanotubes to propose that eukaryotes arose from physically distinct, functionally specialized (energy factory, protein factory, DNA repository/RNA factory), obligatorily symbiotic prokaryotes in which the protein factory and DNA repository/RNA factory cells were coupled by nanotubes and the protein factory ultimately internalized the other two. This hypothesis naturally explains many aspects of eukaryotic physiology, including the nuclear envelope being a folded single membrane repeatedly pierced by membrane-bound tubules (the nuclear pores), suggests that species analogous or homologous to eukaryotic progenitors are likely unculturable as monocultures, and makes a large number of testable predictions.

REVIEWERS

This article was reviewed by Purificación López-García and Toni Gabaldón.

Fundamental issues related to the origin of melatonin and melatonin isomers during evolution: relation to their biological functions

Melatonin and melatonin isomers exist and/or coexist in living organisms including yeasts, bacteria and plants. The levels of melatonin isomers are significantly higher than that of melatonin in some plants and in several fermented products such as in wine and bread. Currently, there are no reports documenting the presence of melatonin isomers in vertebrates. From an evolutionary point of view, it is unlikely that melatonin isomers do not exist in vertebrates. On the other hand, large quantities of the microbial flora exist in the gut of the vertebrates. These microorganisms frequently exchange materials with the host. Melatonin isomers, which are produced by these organisms inevitably enter the host's system. The origins of melatonin and its isomers can be traced back to photosynthetic bacteria and other primitive unicellular organisms. Since some of these bacteria are believed to be the precursors of mitochondria and chloroplasts these cellular organelles may be the primary sites of melatonin production in animals or in plants, respectively. Phylogenic analysis based on its rate-limiting synthetic enzyme, serotonin N-acetyltransferase (SNAT), indicates its multiple origins during evolution. Therefore, it is likely that melatonin and its isomer are also present in the domain of archaea, which perhaps require these molecules to protect them against hostile environments including extremely high or low temperature. Evidence indicates that the initial and primary function of melatonin and its isomers was to serve as the first-line of defence against oxidative stress and all other functions were acquired during evolution either by the process of adoption or by the extension of its antioxidative capacity.

Protein targeting and transport as a necessary consequence of increased cellular complexity

With increasing intracellular complexity, a new cell-biological problem that is the allocation of cytoplasmically synthesized proteins to their final destinations within the cell emerged. A special challenge is thereby the translocation of proteins into or across cellular membranes. The underlying mechanisms are only in parts well understood, but it can be assumed that the course of cellular evolution had a deep impact on the design of the required molecular machines. In this article, we aim to summarize the current knowledge and concepts of the evolutionary development of protein trafficking as a necessary premise and consequence of increased cellular complexity.

Evolution of replicative DNA polymerases in archaea and their contributions to the eukaryotic replication machinery

The elaborate eukaryotic DNA replication machinery evolved from the archaeal ancestors that themselves show considerable complexity. Here we discuss the comparative genomic and phylogenetic analysis of the core replication enzymes, the DNA polymerases, in archaea and their relationships with the eukaryotic polymerases. In archaea, there are three groups of family B DNA polymerases, historically known as PolB1, PolB2 and PolB3. All three groups appear to descend from the last common ancestors of the extant archaea but their subsequent evolutionary trajectories seem to have been widely different. Although PolB3 is present in all archaea, with the exception of Thaumarchaeota, and appears to be directly involved in lagging strand replication, the evolution of this gene does not follow the archaeal phylogeny, conceivably due to multiple horizontal transfers and/or dramatic differences in evolutionary rates. In contrast, PolB1 is missing in Euryarchaeota but otherwise seems to have evolved vertically. The third archaeal group of family B polymerases, PolB2, includes primarily proteins in which the catalytic centers of the polymerase and exonuclease domains are disrupted and accordingly the enzymes appear to be inactivated. The members of the PolB2 group are scattered across archaea and might be involved in repair or regulation of replication along with inactivated members of the RadA family ATPases and an additional, uncharacterized protein that are encoded within the same predicted operon. In addition to the family B polymerases, all archaea, with the exception of the Crenarchaeota, encode enzymes of a distinct family D the origin of which is unclear. We examine multiple considerations that appear compatible with the possibility that family D polymerases are highly derived homologs of family B. The eukaryotic DNA polymerases show a highly complex relationship with their archaeal ancestors including contributions of proteins and domains from both the family B and the family D archaeal polymerases.

Eukaryotic origins: How and when was the mitochondrion acquired?

Comparative genomics has revealed that the last eukaryotic common ancestor possessed the hallmark cellular architecture of modern eukaryotes. However, the remarkable success of such analyses has created a dilemma. If key eukaryotic features are ancestral to this group, then establishing the relative timing of their origins becomes difficult. In discussions of eukaryote origins, special significance has been placed on the timing of mitochondrial acquisition. In one view, mitochondrial acquisition was the trigger for eukaryogenesis. Others argue that development of phagocytosis was a prerequisite to acquisition. Results from comparative genomics and molecular phylogeny are often invoked to support one or the other scenario. We show here that the associations between specific cell biological models of eukaryogenesis and evolutionary genomic data are not as strong as many suppose. Disentangling these eliminates many of the arguments that polarize current debate.

The archaeal legacy of eukaryotes: a phylogenomic perspective

The origin of the eukaryotic cell can be regarded as one of the hallmarks in the history of life on our planet. The apparent genomic chimerism in eukaryotic genomes is currently best explained by invoking a cellular fusion at the root of the eukaryotes that involves one archaeal and one or more bacterial components. Here, we use a phylogenomics approach to reevaluate the evolutionary affiliation between Archaea and eukaryotes, and provide further support for scenarios in which the nuclear lineage in eukaryotes emerged from within the archaeal radiation, displaying a strong phylogenetic affiliation with, or even within, the archaeal TACK superphylum. Further taxonomic sampling of archaeal genomes in this superphylum will certainly provide a better resolution in the events that have been instrumental for the emergence of the eukaryotic lineage.

Archaea: the first domain of diversified life

The study of the origin of diversified life has been plagued by technical and conceptual difficulties, controversy, and apriorism. It is now popularly accepted that the universal tree of life is rooted in the akaryotes and that Archaea and Eukarya are sister groups to each other. However, evolutionary studies have overwhelmingly focused on nucleic acid and protein sequences, which partially fulfill only two of the three main steps of phylogenetic analysis, formulation of realistic evolutionary models, and optimization of tree reconstruction. In the absence of character polarization, that is, the ability to identify ancestral and derived character states, any statement about the rooting of the tree of life should be considered suspect. Here we show that macromolecular structure and a new phylogenetic framework of analysis that focuses on the parts of biological systems instead of the whole provide both deep and reliable phylogenetic signal and enable us to put forth hypotheses of origin. We review over a decade of phylogenomic studies, which mine information in a genomic census of millions of encoded proteins and RNAs. We show how the use of process models of molecular accumulation that comply with Weston's generality criterion supports a consistent phylogenomic scenario in which the origin of diversified life can be traced back to the early history of Archaea.

The dispersed archaeal eukaryome and the complex archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes

The ancestral set of eukaryotic genes is a chimera composed of genes of archaeal and bacterial origins thanks to the endosymbiosis event that gave rise to the mitochondria and apparently antedated the last common ancestor of the extant eukaryotes. The proto-mitochondrial endosymbiont is confidently identified as an α-proteobacterium. In contrast, the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes remains elusive, although evidence is accumulating that it could have belonged to a deep lineage within the TACK (Thaumarchaeota, Aigarchaeota, Crenarchaeota, Korarchaeota) superphylum of the Archaea. Recent surveys of archaeal genomes show that the apparent ancestors of several key functional systems of eukaryotes, the components of the archaeal "eukaryome," such as ubiquitin signaling, RNA interference, and actin-based and tubulin-based cytoskeleton structures, are identifiable in different archaeal groups. We suggest that the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes was a complex form, rooted deeply within the TACK superphylum, that already possessed some quintessential eukaryotic features, in particular, a cytoskeleton, and perhaps was capable of a primitive form of phagocytosis that would facilitate the engulfment of potential symbionts. This putative group of Archaea could have existed for a relatively short time before going extinct or undergoing genome streamlining, resulting in the dispersion of the eukaryome. This scenario might explain the difficulty with the identification of the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes despite the straightforward detection of apparent ancestors to many signature eukaryotic functional systems.

Carl Woese's vision of cellular evolution and the domains of life

In a series of conceptual articles published around the millennium, Carl Woese emphasized that evolution of cells is the central problem of evolutionary biology, that the three-domain ribosomal tree of life is an essential framework for reconstructing cellular evolution, and that the evolutionary dynamics of functionally distinct cellular systems are fundamentally different, with the information processing systems “crystallizing” earlier than operational systems. The advances of evolutionary genomics over the last decade vindicate major aspects of Woese’s vision. Despite the observations of pervasive horizontal gene transfer among bacteria and archaea, the ribosomal tree of life comes across as a central statistical trend in the “forest” of phylogenetic trees of individual genes, and hence, an appropriate scaffold for evolutionary reconstruction. The evolutionary stability of information processing systems, primarily translation, becomes ever more striking with the accumulation of comparative genomic data indicating that nearly allof the few universal genes encode translation system components. Woese’s view on the fundamental distinctions between the three domains of cellular life also withstand the test of comparative genomics, although his non-acceptance of symbiogenetic scenarios for the origin of eukaryotes might not. Above all, Woese’s key prediction that understanding evolution of microbes will be the core of the new evolutionary biology appears to be materializing.

Phylogenomic test of the hypotheses for the evolutionary origin of eukaryotes

The evolutionary origin of eukaryotes is a question of great interest for which many different hypotheses have been proposed. These hypotheses predict distinct patterns of evolutionary relationships for individual genes of the ancestral eukaryotic genome. The availability of numerous completely sequenced genomes covering the three domains of life makes it possible to contrast these predictions with empirical data. We performed a systematic analysis of the phylogenetic relationships of ancestral eukaryotic genes with archaeal and bacterial genes. In contrast with previous studies, we emphasize the critical importance of methods accounting for statistical support, horizontal gene transfer, and gene loss, and we disentangle the processes underlying the phylogenomic pattern we observe. We first recover a clear signal indicating that a fraction of the bacteria-like eukaryotic genes are of alphaproteobacterial origin. Then, we show that the majority of bacteria-related eukaryotic genes actually do not point to a relationship with a specific bacterial taxonomic group. We also provide evidence that eukaryotes branch close to the last archaeal common ancestor. Our results demonstrate that there is no phylogenetic support for hypotheses involving a fusion with a bacterium other than the ancestor of mitochondria. Overall, they leave only two possible interpretations, respectively, based on the early-mitochondria hypotheses, which suppose an early endosymbiosis of an alphaproteobacterium in an archaeal host and on the slow-drip autogenous hypothesis, in which early eukaryotic ancestors were particularly prone to horizontal gene transfers.

The exception proves the rule? Dual targeting of nuclear-encoded proteins into endosymbiotic organelles

Plant cells harbor two types of endosymbiotic organelle: mitochondria and chloroplasts. As a consequence of endosymbiotic gene transfer, the majority of their proteins are encoded in the nucleus and post-translationally 're'-imported into the respective target organelle. The corresponding transport signals are usually selective for a single organelle, but several proteins are transported into both the mitochondria and chloroplasts. To estimate the number of proteins with such dual targeting properties in Arabidopsis, we classified the proteins encoded by nuclear genes of endosymbiotic origin according to the respective targeting specificity of their N-terminal transport signals as predicted by the TargetP software package. Selected examples of the resulting protein classes were subsequently analyzed by transient transformation assays as well as by in organello protein transport experiments. It was found that most proteins with high prediction values for both organelles show dual targeting with both experimental approaches. Unexpectedly, however, dual targeting was even found among those proteins that are predicted to be localized solely in one of the two endosymbiotic organelles. In total, among the 16 candidate proteins analyzed, we identified 10 proteins with dual targeting properties. This unexpectedly high proportion suggests that such transport properties are much more abundant than anticipated.

Close encounters of the third domain: the emerging genomic view of archaeal diversity and evolution

The Archaea represent the so-called Third Domain of life, which has evolved in parallel with the Bacteria and which is implicated to have played a pivotal role in the emergence of the eukaryotic domain of life. Recent progress in genomic sequencing technologies and cultivation-independent methods has started to unearth a plethora of data of novel, uncultivated archaeal lineages. Here, we review how the availability of such genomic data has revealed several important insights into the diversity, ecological relevance, metabolic capacity, and the origin and evolution of the archaeal domain of life.

The common ancestor of archaea and eukarya was not an archaeon

It is often assumed that eukarya originated from archaea. This view has been recently supported by phylogenetic analyses in which eukarya are nested within archaea. Here, I argue that these analyses are not reliable, and I critically discuss archaeal ancestor scenarios, as well as fusion scenarios for the origin of eukaryotes. Based on recognized evolutionary trends toward reduction in archaea and toward complexity in eukarya, I suggest that their last common ancestor was more complex than modern archaea but simpler than modern eukaryotes (the bug in-between scenario). I propose that the ancestors of archaea (and bacteria) escaped protoeukaryotic predators by invading high temperature biotopes, triggering their reductive evolution toward the "prokaryotic" phenotype (the thermoreduction hypothesis). Intriguingly, whereas archaea and eukarya share many basic features at the molecular level, the archaeal mobilome resembles more the bacterial than the eukaryotic one. I suggest that selection of different parts of the ancestral virosphere at the onset of the three domains played a critical role in shaping their respective biology. Eukarya probably evolved toward complexity with the help of retroviruses and large DNA viruses, whereas similar selection pressure (thermoreduction) could explain why the archaeal and bacterial mobilomes somehow resemble each other.

The legacy of Carl Woese and Wolfram Zillig: from phylogeny to landmark discoveries

Two pioneers of twentieth century biology passed away during the past decade, Wolfram Zillig in April 2005 and Carl Woese in December 2012. Among several other accomplishments, Woese has been celebrated for the discovery of the domain Archaea and for establishing rRNA as the 'Rosetta Stone' of evolutionary and environmental microbiology. His work inspired many scientists in various fields of biology, and among them was Wolfram Zillig, who is credited with the discovery of several unique molecular features of archaea. In this Essay, we highlight the remarkable achievements of Woese and Zillig and consider how they have shaped the archaeal research landscape.